Monday, June 30, 2014

At 1:30 pm on Saturday, I boarded the bus to Soya Misaki. It takes an
unexpectedly long time to reach the Northern Monument, which is
fifty-minutes down a winding road which runs along the coast. Along the way to Soya Misaki the view is split between a calm ocean coastline to the left, and rolling hills of green baby bamboo
leaves which shake like sugarcane in the wind. Because of the very strong wind that blows year-round there are almost no trees in
Wakkanai, creating a pastoral view that
is as expansive as the sea. Out in this area there are only a few small fishing boats, and an occasional
house interrupts an otherwise completely desolate view. While my eyes gazed out on this sparse part
of the earth I thought of the downtown area near Wakkanai station, and felt it was positively metropolitan.

The bus drops off passengers directly in front of the Northern Monument. Not
surprisingly, there were only a couple of people near the moment taking
pictures. I came here with a tight schedule, only 25 minutes to be exact,
before I had to catch the bus back to Wakkanai Station. If I missed that bus I
would be waiting over two hours for the next one. Originally, I had thought I might
stay in Soya Misaki for 3 hours to slowly enjoy the scene, but falling ill the
previous day and not being able to do anything, I could not afford to spend so
much time in one place. I jumped out
of the bus and hurried
to photograph the monument. Thankfully as there were very few other tourists, I could take a few solitary photos without
delay.

I then entered the peculiar blue gift shop next to the monument.
I had seen pictures of this place on the internet and I was looking forward
to finally getting to see what souvenirs Wakkanai had to offer. Expecting to find merchandise
arranged in clean and simple display (as in all other gift shops in Japan), I
was instead greeted with long fold-out tables and
plastic bins pilled with branded goods. The store’s gritty interior made it look
more like an indoor flea market than a proper gift shop for a famous monument, but in the few minutes I explored it I found
treasures inside such as a Putin matryoshka doll, some branded chopsticks, and a
single postcard of the monument. I quickly bought a few goods and headed across the
street, where a long
wooden staircase lead toward the peak of a grassy hill.

At the top I found the town’s old
navel watch tower, and a few other statues commemorating various points in
time. I had only enough
time to photograph the watch tower and an unusual bronze status of a milkmaid
before the bus arrived.

On the side of the street opposite the Northern Monument,
I boarded the bus back to Wakkanai Station. I was
predictably tired and
took the row of seats in the far back of the bus so that I could lay down and sleep through
the fifty-minute ride. Sleeping on
public transportation is quite normal in Japan, but it is quite
embarrassing and rude for someone to lay
down across five seats. Normally
I would not have been so bold as to do so, but I noticed a man sleeping on the same bus on the way to Soya Misaki, so I
decided this was somehow acceptable.

It
was 3:00 pm when I departed and the sun was at a striking angle. The bus
followed the same bowl-shaped path along the coast, and while I lay on the back

Friday, June 27, 2014

At the edge of the Sea of Okhotsk one finds a solemn but colorful
menagerie of sights. The bright red and white stripes of the lighthouse seemed
bolder against a radiant blue sly. The Wakkanai Aquarium, its walls drawn up
like a children’s book, are made entirely from primary colors.

I bought tickets to the aquarium, where I was
first greeted by the
fat sea lions, seals, and small dirty penguins in bright pools of
chlorine. For a
couple hundred yen, one family paid to have the aquarium staff feed the seals.
Each time the old man threw a fish high into the air, the seals kept their gaze
on the sky and fought like dogs as soon as the fish it the water. Three or four
times he through the fish and I never tired of this amusing scene.

The seal and penguin poolsare outdoors, and can be seen from the aquarium gate. I thought it strange
that an aquarium in such a cold part of the world would have outdoor exhibits,
but it seemed that most
of the animals were from the shores nearby, and
thus immune to the cold. Only the human customers of the aquarium might
appreciate an indoor exhibit during the winter.

One small two story building
houses various fish and other sea animals. The course starts from the second
floor, with a shallow touching pong. I felt the prickly skin of a starfish and
gently poked the needles of a sea urchin. The course then leads the viewer on a
winding path of small tanks with crabs, octopus, and fish. The path finishes at
a staircase, which directs the patron to the first floor exhibit, a large 360
degree tank boasting fish of all sizes.

Taped to a column on the first
floor, I found a
poster advertising Sakhalin, the Russian island just off the coast of Wakkanai.
The posted showed the famous Orthodox cathedral, which much be Sakhalin’s only
attraction, and several picture of blonde girls. The posted looked like it was
from the 80s, and had just never been taken down.

After observing all the large fish swim at furious
speeds in the circular course of the tank, I excited from the ground floor, stopping to look at the electric eel, who was
lighting a tank of red, yellow, and blue light bulbs. I thought people in
Wakkanai must love this simple juxtaposition of primary colors, because I saw
the pattern everywhere.

Hearing an announcement that
there would be a show at the penguin pool, I headed to the entrance, for another walk
around the outdoor pools. Only then did I noticed a separate cage, disconnected from the main
seal pool. Peering
out from behind the blue painted bars where two baby seals, lying on their bellies in a
shallow pool of water. They seemed so lonely and pitiful. The sign on their
cage red, “these are baby seal born this year.” I wondered why they had been separated
from their mothers.

I stayed a bit longer in the aquarium to see the penguin
and seal feeding, an
intimate show which was seen by only 10 others
besides me.The young staff member from the aquarium had the
penguins walk around a little course to receive the food, and exit the pool
through a door in a tiny toy house. The seals were trained to scoop up rings
with heads and play fetch with a ball. A few rings were given to the littlest
children in the audience, and they threw the rings into the pool for the seals
to wear on their heads.

After the show I quietly left the aquarium. Although it was
small, simple, and old, I felt that it embodied the curious character and startling
color of Wakkanai.